


And He Shall Appear

by violentlypan



Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man Noir, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, HawkDevil, How Do I Tag, M/M, Peter Benjamin Parker Needs a Hug, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) Spoilers, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse - Freeform, ive written so many "spider"s that it no longer looks like a word, not evil matthew murdock but i didnt know that existed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-04
Updated: 2019-03-04
Packaged: 2019-11-12 00:50:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18000662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violentlypan/pseuds/violentlypan
Summary: Peter Benjamin Parker hasn't had a great life. He's been betrayed by everyone he loves.Meeting the Spider Gang was the best thing that happened to him.Until he falls through the portal and gets the wrong universe.Whoops?





	And He Shall Appear

**Author's Note:**

> I was rewatching Spiderverse intros and realized... "Hey, uh, Spider-Noir looks /identical/ to Matt Murdock pre-bite." And then I did some digging, and realized there are a lot of cinematic parallels (for instance, a shot of the Brooklyn Bridge in Spiderverse that matches the lighting and angle of the one from the Daredevil intro.) And then I said, "Well, what if he's a time traveller?" And then I said, "Wait, what if they actually shared a body instead?" And then this happened.
> 
> I don't even know.

 

It was a Wednesday in 1933 when his uncle was killed.

 

Benjamin Parker was a union worker; he’d noticed the horrible conditions of the sweatshops. How could he not? It was clear to anyone who’d spent thirty seconds around the place the tragedies going on inside. His idea- a strike- was a brilliant one, well-organized and if the Goblin hadn’t killed him, it probably would have _worked._ He’d left for the day, with a kiss on May Parker’s forehead and a quiet explanation on justice to Peter.

 

_“If there is too much power, then it is the responsibility of the people to take it away.”_

 

Well, the Goblin thought Ben Parker had too much power. And he left the mutilated body on the steps of his highschool; the face intact, the body so crumpled, battered, and bloody that it was almost unrecognizable.

 

Peter stopped going to highschool after that. Stopped talking to his friends, stopped going to church- what good was a God that couldn’t keep his family safe? Some deeper part of him understood that that was selfish. He refused to care.

 

Instead, he and May threw everything they had into picking up Ben’s legacy. They went to and organized rallies. Walk-outs. Strikes and boycotts.

 

And then one day, it all changed. Enforcers- the Goblin’s grunts- appeared, sent people flying in every direction and spitting about communists and payment, and only the appearance of a young reporter- barely in his twenties, excited and passionate and kind- got them to leave.

 

\--------

 

Peter and Ben Urich were fast friends. They explored the world of journalism together, getting in fights and going for quick little flings on the weekends, a dynamic and ever-changing relationship with all the flairs of teenage rebellion.

 

And on a Wednesday, somewhere in the mix, Peter got the bite- a swarm of spiders, really, but just one bit him. An ancient relic of some sort, perhaps; a spider statue that released its younger flesh-and-blood compatriots. He passed out on the spot as one sank its mandibles into his hand.

 

And he dreamed- he dreamed of an odd, hulking spider-creature, bestowing upon him “the curse of power” with fangs and eight gleaming eyes, told him to “embrace us.” When he woke up, he briefly questioned his entire religion and also life, then dismissed it as a nightmare until he realized that he was stronger and faster and, most notably, could _literally stick to the walls._

 

\--------

 

Things got very weird, very fast then. He built devices to spit webs from the spinnerets he found in his arms, built a costume to hide his identity. Spider-Man never had to pay the quarter for rent weekly that seemed gold to him. A pistol revolver in his hands, its heavy metal confidence, felt natural and comforting. Like he was taking his own security into his own hands. He found that a more direct and physical reply to the world’s demons worked better for his anger and guilt and all the pent-up nervousness that wracked his sixteen-year-old body.

 

Later, he’d wish even for those feelings.

 

Because when Ben Urich betrayed him, just as Ben Parker had, it didn’t come with the finality, the closure, that death provided. It was messy and angry and one final fling, full of bared teeth and harsh words, and for the next full year whenever they passed in the streets both kept their heads tucked down and avoided eye contact.

 

\--------

 

Peter killed the Vulture.

 

It felt good.

 

May told him it shouldn’t, that he was losing sight of his morals. He knew she was right- there was a demon growing inside him, but it still felt like a betrayal. He dated Felicia Hardy in a spur-of-the-moment decision and she broke up with him just as quickly; he took to wearing the suit more often than not, became a private investigator for the freedom and the easy money.

 

\--------

 

It was in a speakeasy that it happened, involving an egg cream with a shot of vodka. He felt a tug at the back of his jacket and turned to hear screams.

 

And quick as anything else in his life, he was gone, hurtling through a portal of psychedelic patterns until he hit the ground above a bar, with things lit up in all different.... he wasn’t sure. Some kind of quality he’d never seen before, that lit things up in some sort of aesthetically pleasing manner.

 

He was surprised to feel something- he hadn’t really felt much of anything in a year or so, and he wasn’t sure he missed it. But whatever this quality was that turned things to beauty brought him to tears that stung and burned at his eyes.

 

And then the momentary spell was broken; something was happening that caused a shiver to run up his spine, almost like his spider-sense but… different, less jarring. Because on the rooftop there was a small girl standing next to a large… vehicle of some sort, staring at him with huge eyes.

 

She introduced herself as Peni Parker, the pilot of the SP//DER robot. They worked together for a day, then found a pig- _“Call me Peter Porker!_ ” wearing some sort of odd suit, and decided that if there were going to be more like them, they should find them.

 

Which led them to May’s- a different May’s- basement, where they found a young boy of color, an older girl, and a grown man.

 

The Spider-Gang only worked together for three days, but damn if it wasn’t the best three days Peter had ever had. They were kind and honest and sweet and okay, if he was being a dad to Peni, it was only because she needed a friend more than he had expected and also she was really clingy, even if she was only three years younger. He learned colors- _red, yellow, blue_ \- and slowly grew comfortable with them. Even though the collider could ruin their reality, it was beautiful. A collision of red-blue-purple, spitting green and yellow sparks.

 

It lit up Peni’s face like it had lit up his own, once upon a very long time ago, sipping a soda with Ben Urich.

 

And then he fell back through the portal before she was done programming it, and that’s where things went awry.

 

\--------

 

Peter woke up and the colors were gone. Not just the colors- _everything,_ everything was gone, and if he thought his senses were heightened before they made the world a kaleidoscope now, dogs barking and people revving cars- _so many cars_ \- and laughing and the whir of electricity _everywhere,_ sirens and screaming and the constant rush of water and something else under the city.

 

He curled up in the bed, covering his ears with hands too small for him and letting too-small legs touch his chest, and tried to block it all out like he did as Spider-Noir.

 

It took him hours and hours to fall asleep.

 

\---------

 

Father Lantom noticed, of course. So did Sister Maggie- suddenly, the boy they called “Matthew” was getting into fights, handling his senses better. Stick- some old man who was… er, trying to train Peter- was more happy with his progress than ever, but Peter just felt empty in his new life.

 

He retook middle and highschool, and found that he did better the second time around despite his blindness- he learned Braille and how to use a cane, even though he got odd looks for “relearning” the skills. And he got into Columbia Law.

 

And then he met Foggy.

 

Foggy was kind and sweet and brought out feelings that Matthew didn’t know he had. They dated for three months, then broke up amicably and continued as friends for years and years. Peter discovered he _loved_ law school, loved being able to bring justice to people with his words and hear the gasps of the jury as he masterfully presented the damning evidence of a trial.

 

But through it all he kept fighting- practicing at Fogwell’s Gym, then using a black suit and mask to imitate his old alter ego despite the dimensional change. They’d called him “Eyes Without A Face” once; now he was a face without eyes, a silent marauder in the night that took down the attackers he used to as Spiderman. He dated Elektra.

 

He learned to reconnect with his religion over a cup of coffee with Father Lantom- a conversation about the devil he was concerned about, protected by the seal of confession.

 

And then Elektra brought him to a huge house, introduced him to the man who’d killed Peter’s- no, Matthew’s- father one night. Gave him a target, and Matthew took to him gladly- though it wasn’t his life, truly, he wished he had Matt’s father to coach him through it.

 

And then she handed him a knife and told him to slit his throat, and ~~Peter~~ Matthew refused. Because in truth, he _liked_ his new life. He loved Foggy and he loved his school and he didn’t want to go to jail. And maybe, inside him, something told him it was _wrong._

 

So he left instead- called the police, left Elektra. She beat him senseless over it. He left anyway.

 

Foggy nursed him back to health, joined him in his anger at Elektra. He found the shitty German beer he’d loved before at a small corner store in Midtown and made bimonthly trips to grab more; he graduated Columbia summa cum laude, threw his graduation cap with Foggy.

 

They started Nelson & Murdock together. “Best damn avocados,” Foggy said, staring proudly into the office, and Matthew agreed, but somehow he couldn’t stop rubbing fingers where the tiny holes in his arms for his webs should have been and wondered what would happen now.

 

\---------

 

Matt found Karen next, and she met the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. He and his alter ego defended her, proved her innocent. He took down the Russians and almost- _almost-_ punched Stick in the face.

 

And then Karen introduced him to Ben Urich.

 

He tried to be civil, of course. Tried to recognize that this was a _different_ Urich, older, changed. More experienced. Not the one he’d found slashed to pieces after defying the Goblin.

 

But at night, his punches became more frenzied. He realized he wasn’t letting the Devil out- he was letting Peter out. And sometimes, Peter _was_ the Devil.

 

Matthew talked to Father Lantom, concerned. “Do you believe in the Devil?” he asked, and the priest told him a story; he left, confused and disconcerted with the answer.

 

Then he was beaten up by Fisk and by Yoshioka the ninja, and collapsed on the floor of his apartment, the last thing he saw Foggy’s feet before passing out gratefully into the darkness that lay before him.

 

And he dreamed- he dreamed of that Spider-God who had given him his powers, and he dreamed that a young boy- maybe fourteen- was standing in front of him. A younger version of himself, light-hearted and spry.

 

The next day, Peter drove Matthew’s best friend away. And when Matthew tried to fix things with Karen, he broke their relationship, too.

 

And the darkness that settled over him like a raincloud, the darkness he hadn’t felt since 1933 in Earth 90214, stole his emotions away again. He sat in contemplative silence for hours, until it became clear to him what he had to do.

 

He had left Spiderman behind.

 

He could bring him back. _Peter_ could bring him back.

 

Except, because life just _couldn’t_ be easy for Matthew, he heard people talking about the “new vigilante in New York who stopped a car with his bare hands,” and that threw him for a loop. He couldn’t see anything, but some nights when he held still and tuned out the sirens and the cars, he heard a familiar _thwip- thwip- thwip_ he thought he’d left behind in Miles’ universe.

 

So a Spiderman costume was a no-go.

 

Instead, he talked to Fisk’s designer. Made a suit of red and black, the colors Miles and Peni wore. And then, because he understood Peter was the devil at this point, he added the horns.

 

And Daredevil was born, a fusion of Peter and of the Devil and of justice.

 

But it was Matthew who put Fisk into jail.

 

And when that didn’t work, Daredevil had Matt’s back, beating the man who had taken Elena Cardenas and Ben Urich and Aaron Davis and hurt his friends, from this dimension and from Miles’ dimension. But he didn’t kill him- he _wouldn’t._

 

And even though Daredevil thought he felt a twinge of regret, it was overpowered by the sense of victory, of _finally_ having conquered him. He returned to Karen and to Foggy, and for a brief instant things were good again.

 

Then, he met Spiderman.

 

And things started to go wrong again.

 

\---------

 

He hadn’t felt the glitching since Miles’s dimension, a sort of pain like being ripped apart and put back together again while having the worst migraine of his life.

 

\---------

 

When he met the younger Peter B. Parker, an excited fifteen-year-old with a suit and an ambition and a spider’s genes, he fell silent. The tattoo of his heartbeat against his ribcage was so identical to his own, only stronger- the same beat as the older Peter B. He didn’t tell the boy what he would become. Instead, he inclined his head quietly and asked,

 

“You’re Peter Parker?”

 

The boy’s heartbeat sped up. “Why? How?”

 

Matthew- no, Daredevil- no, _Peter_ took the helmet off and sat down opposite the boy, feeling the familiar chill up his spine.

 

“You’re like me,” Peter said quietly.

 

“I’m… there are _other_ spider-people?” the younger Peter asked, and Peter Noir explained- the dimensional shift, his visit with the Spider-God, his own reality.

 

And then as he spoke about waking up in Matthew’s body, he felt it again- the shredding of his skin, bones, and cartilage. He seized up for a second, letting out quiet hisses of pain, then returned to his Matthew’s body.

 

“Mr. Matthew-”

 

“My name’s Peter, just… call me Peter, please-”

 

“Mr. Peter, this is seriously the coolest thing, like, ever, but we gotta get you back to 1933.”

 

“No.”

“Wha- why not? You’re going to die if you stay here! You- you gotta-”

 

“There’s _nobody_ for me in 1933, Peter.” And it was the truth. Then he added, “And I don’t know how it’ll affect Murdock. It could affect all of New York for all I know. I woke up in his body at age 11 and we share- we share a mind. I’m Daredevil, but he isn’t.”

 

“So if you go back to 1933…”

 

“Daredevil will be _gone._ I helped Murdock stabilize his senses- exchanging my own sight for his abilities. I got him through school- I’m 17 in my own dimension.”

 

“But… if you glitch out so much you die, then Murdock will die too!”

 

“It’s a risk I’ll face,” he said, his expression softening and changing. “Hi. Matthew Murdock, defense attorney, at your service.”

 

Peter shook his head- at least, Matt thought he did. “God, this is so cool and so- _so_ confusing. But you can’t die, Mr. Murdock, people need you!”

 

“I know. But my business partner- my _friend-_  Foggy can take over for me. I’m not worried about it.” (It was a _lie,_ but whatever.) His face hardened again and the light in his eyes burned back out; his hair faded almost imperceptibly, losing some of its red color.

 

And then Peter’s heart rate picked back up, and Peter Noir didn’t need Matthew’s super-senses to recognize that there were cogs turning in his head.

 

“What if I could separate you? You can both still operate in 2016, but we could save you from being zapped into oblivion.”

 

“It’s impossible,” Peter said regretfully. “It’d take magic.”

 

\---------

 

Twenty minutes later they were standing in the Sanctum Sanctorum. Someone with weird, crackling energy spouts emitting from their hands was standing in front of Matthew.

 

“Matthew. And Peter. My name is Doctor Stephen Strange, and I am a master of the mystic arts.”

 

“Matthew right now. You can separate us?”

 

He exhaled. “I can try.”

 

There was an odd slashing noise. Matthew restrained himself from letting Peter take control and beating the man to a pulp.

 

Nothing happened, but Matthew started glitching- the pain wracking his whole body, until a hand on his shoulder brought his body back into itself.

 

“That’s it,” Strange muttered, then said something Matt didn’t recognize. Instantly, though, the little tremors he’d been feeling for days settled. “That should keep you in this dimension for a while. Hang on.”

 

The odd slashing noise happened again, and this time, Matthew heard another heartbeat join the room before he collapsed.

 

\---------

 

Peter reopened his eyes and saw colors again.

 

The red of Stephen Strange’s flowing cape, the blue of Peter Parker’s clothes- he blinked back tears for a moment while the other two rushed to Matthew’s side.

 

Frantically, he looked down at his wrists. His webshooters were there, attached to his spinnerets; his flowing trench coat and all-black outfit, his mask. He could see Matthew, now- maroon hair and pale red glasses to cover his clouded blue eyes.

 

And then he realized that he didn’t have the Devil anymore.

 

“Was I not… was I not the Daredevil?” he wondered aloud, and Strange shot a glance at him.

 

“Good of you to join us, Peter! Welcome to 2016.”

 

“I’ve been here,” he replied sarcastically, then stepped over some kind of ritual circle on the floor and put two fingers gently to Matthew’s neck. He glanced up. “His heartbeat is faster than normal. I’ve been helping him manage his senses- do you have a sensory deprivation spell?”  


“This will do,” Strange said, producing a pair of headphones. “They’re noise-cancelling.”

 

“That will help. But he can taste and feel things, too- he can probably taste the metal in my pistol at my waist, for instance.” He would have said more, but then he seized for a second, glitching up, and had to bite back a yell of pain.

 

Strange glanced back at him and put a hand on his shoulder again, which sent him back into his body. The pain receded, relief taking its place, and he stood for a second, shaking with the effort.

 

Strange disappeared for a second while Peter Sr leaned on Peter Jr, then reappeared with a book- he chanted something, and both Spidermen had to shield their eyes as he cast something on Matthew. Instantly he shot up, panting.

 

“Peter-”

 

“Matt!” both said simultaneously. Noir felt something warm in his chest- something he hadn’t felt since he first met Foggy.

 

“You’re not the Devil,” Matthew said, a note of realization in his tone. He put a hand to his ears.

 

“No,” Peter agreed. “He’s not inside me.”

 

Smaller Peter- Peter _really_ needed to find a better name for him- looked at Peter. Peter looked at Smaller Peter.

 

“You look… healthier than I did at your age.”

 

“Well, yeah, I didn’t grow up in the Great Depression!” he exclaimed, lapsing into chuckles.

 

“Peter, Peter, and Matt. Is everyone settled?” Strange asked. “Brilliant. Bye.” And then they were out on the pavement in front of the sanctum, still confused and disoriented as ever.

 

\---------

 

Spider-Noir joined Spider-Man on the streets of NYC, while “Benjamin Murdock,” Matt’s distant cousin, joined the NYPD as a junior investigator, and started going to church with Matt. He saw colors and got to fight bad guys and lived life peacefully, and that was enough for him.

 

Spider-Man became a local hero. Peter Parker met Tony Stark, got an internship- a real one- and graduated valedictorian of his highschool, and that was enough for him.

 

Within months, Matthew grew accustomed to being Daredevil and Matthew in the same mind, and even met the Avengers. He and one Clint Barton got along well- okay, they didn’t at _first,_ but stitching someone up after a battle with a dumpster cat tends to make people friends- and quickly graduated to a relationship. Nelson & Murdock became Nelson, Murdock & Page, and that was enough for him.

 

On Earth-90214, in the year 1933, people barely noticed the absence of Spiderman. Soon they were preoccupied with war efforts, and the name Spiderman faded into a cryptic tale of a dark-clothed vigilante with a pair of guns who disappeared one day.

 

On Earth-77781, Miles Morales was graduating with high honors from his school, New York was recovering, and an official charity for orphans was set up in Peter Parker’s name,

 

And on Earth 616, Bullseye woke up on a hospital bed, with a steel implant in his spine and an insatiable bloodlust.

 


End file.
